Business Practices: Unpaid Internships… May Lead To Nothing?

Friday, June 4th 2010

Unpaid Internships Help No One.**

A major NHL Hockey team sent an email today to my school requesting unpaid photo interns. I was appalled, though sadly not suprised.

This may eventually become part of a larger article I am working on as student board representative for the NPPA. If you have taken an unpaid internship at some point, I would like to hear about your experience. In the next few weeks I also hope to talk with some representatives from the US Department of Labor, to learn more about how they are cracking down on the often illegal scheme being used to replace paid employees during the harsh economic times.


The Original Email:

Subject: [Major National Hockey Team] Photography Interns

Mr. Rees,
It was please (sic) speaking to you on the phone. Below in my signature is all of my contact information and please feel free to contact me at anytime.
Things the students need to know about the internship:
·        The internship is unpaid and we do not reimburse for mileage/fuel
·        The students will be on a game rotation, working approximately 20 home games
·        Business attire must be worn during each game (shirt and tie for men)
·        They must plan on being in stadium for 5+ hours, which includes pre and post game
·        They will be shooting sponsor related material such as signage, in game features, LED and give-aways
·        During the interview process, we ask that the students bring a collection of photography works for us to see

If they have any questions regarding this, please let me know. As I said during the phone call, we will be looking to fill 2 positions and 4 qualified candidates would be optimal. All resumes are to be sent to me.

Thank you and have a great weekend,

Mr. X
Sponsorship Service Coordinator
[Big Hockey Team]

This message went sent to the Missouri Photojournalism Listserve, like many other emails sent out for various internships, some good, some paid, some not, some bad. Often some of the internships that are unpaid might be for a charity or non-profit with expenses covered and such – not good, and still possibly illegal, but they represent genuine opportunities to learn and create. This one disgusted me much more.

The Labor Department’s six criteria for a legal unpaid internship are:

  • The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
  • The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
  • The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
  • The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
  • The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
  • The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

Parts of my reply to the list, based from the information contained in the post, with some analysis:

Phrases like “A great experience, resume builder, you learn a lot, you can get school credit, its a great opportunity” are all RED FLAGS for getting completely ripped off!

- “They will be shooting sponsor related material such as signage, in game features, LED and give-aways” – You WON’T be shooting sports. You’ll be doing pictures for promotions and PR work for PAID advertisers and sponsors. Even if you have ‘a chance’ to shoot ‘some hockey’ you won’t have the right gear and place provided to really make it worth your while, shots from the top of the stadium with a 70-200 won’t impress an editor, you’ll want a hole in the glass [which are limited].

*Chances are you WILL NOT make pictures you will want for your PJ PORTFOLIO.* You can make way better pictures with local teams at the high school or youth level, lots of emotion and access, on your terms.

- You are expected to provide and pay for your own transportation to the game, even if you lived in the St. Louis area: 50 miles Round Trip x $.55/mile = $27.50 you are losing in car expenses just to get to and from the game. If you’re lucky they will give you parking and maybe lunch.

- You are enabling a national sports league franchise to get free employees – rather than hiring a professional to do this PR work, so
you hurt the industry at the same time, thinking “Oh, well maybe they will hire me after graduation to do this?” Forget it, because they’ll find another “intern” to do the same work for free. These teams USED to pay for professional photographers commercial rates to do these pictures.

- If you do this ‘internship’ for credit – you will have to pay Mizzou for the tuition hours, FYI.

- You will be spending at least 6 hours, after traffic, driving, etc.. about 8 hours [assuming you live in St, Louis] – so its a day where
you will not be able to work any other jobs. This does not even pay a basic minimum wage. So you lose money. The kid selling sodas in the stands will make more money than you.

- I bet an 8 hour work day will become the reality [or it would have been for a day worked at a normal job], so 8 hrs x 20 games x $8/hr = $1,280 + $550 mileage expense = $1,830 you will LOSE by taking on this ‘internship” – if you made minimum wage elsewhere.

- If you like hockey, awesome, go to the games with your friends and family and buy a ticket, watch the games and enjoy. It will be better than getting ordered around to take pictures of the mascot or a sign..

More great info here about how Unpaid internships are increasingly common and a bad idea – if not illegal:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html

This too is a good explanation:

**EDIT: Please read some of the comments below, I think they are very useful and intersting. Obviously with this post I decided to take a specific and hard stance, with “Unpaid Internships Help No One” – some stories below have raised points to the contrary – or at least situations where they did benefit, which I think should be recognized. This post has received more discussion than any other on my blog, which I think is great to have such a conversation take place. **

  1. Daniel Berman
    June 4th, 2010 at 9:57 pm

    I took an unpaid internship with SeattlePI.com this past spring-summer, for school credit. I definitely feel like I grew as a shooter over the six months. It gave me access to make some pretty nice pictures, and has lead to paid work elsewhere as a result of stuff made during my internship. I did get reimbursed for mileage and parking, and I was able to use the newspaper’s gear for sports shooting.

  2. Kristin Torres
    June 6th, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    I’m an unpaid intern at KQED. (http://www.kqed.org)

    My situation is a little different, I think, in that my internship base is in my hometown, not more than a few blocks from my house. When I was required to go to San Francisco for training at the main headquarters (I work at the Central Valley bureau), I was put up in a nice hotel and I was reimbursed for my meals and taxis.

    At the bureau, I am only required to come in two days a week but I’ve been there every day since the start of my internship, voluntarily. I have done everything from shoot video to pitch and write scripts for stories that will air next week. It’s really hands-on and I’m learning so much, and it’s only been the first week.

    I live with my parents and therefore don’t need to get a place to stay, like perhaps I would had I taken an internship somewhere else. The money situation was part of the reason I decided to stay home, and I’m lucky that I was able to get a really good internship at the same time.

    I don’t feel like I’m being ripped off. A lot of unpaid internships claim to provide chances at building your portfolio but at internship’s end you don’t really have anything to add because you’ve acted as a flunky for another reporter the entire time. I’m actually being trained and getting really valuable experience that WILL help me. It already has.

    Not all unpaid internships are provided by evil companies that want to take advantage of eager young students. Yes, there are many out there. I think it’s pretty easy to tell which ones they are. Not all unpaid internships are like that, though.

    When it comes down to it, as unfortunate as it may be, I wouldn’t turn down an unpaid internship if it meant I could work for Paste magazine or NPR (though NPR is actually paid, but just for example). Lindsay Eanet is a Paste intern and she’s unpaid. Paste is a huge name to have on her resume for what she’s trying to accomplish, and she seems to be loving her summer in Atlanta and has even written some stuff for Paste’s web site. A lot of Paste interns go on to have positions with the magazine, even just freelance.

    Is it having to shell out for your own opportunity? In some cases, yes. In many cases, though, as someone who can moderately afford it, I would say it’s worth it.

    That brings up the problem of how unfair it is when you’re talking about students who can’t afford unpaid internships, but that’s a different can of worms all together. What I’m saying is that I see what your point, but unpaid internships don’t across the board — or even close to across the board — “help no one.”

  3. pfallon
    June 6th, 2010 at 3:24 pm

    Thanks for the comments Daniel and Kristin, I think they are interesting perspectives and examples.

    Would love to hear more from others with experiences similar or different from Daniel and Kristin’s.
    P.

  4. Leslie
    June 7th, 2010 at 2:56 am

    Ugh I want to vomit reading this. We as students are so conditioned to thinking that internships are the way to a prosperous future, when in reality we are totally being exploited for our go-getting spirits and ideas. I’m no exception considering I’m currently an unpaid intern, but it still makes me sick.

  5. Danielle
    June 10th, 2010 at 6:11 pm

    P.–
    This is an excerpt from a recent blog I wrote called “10 reason’s I’m glad I don’t have a summer internship.” This part is my number 2 reason.

    “2. Tangible gratification. I can’t imagine devoting my summer to doing work without pay. Unpaid internships might offer “great experience,” but I cannot grasp the idea of why anyone would ever work without pay. If you’re good at what you do and you have a strong work ethic there’s no reason you should work for free. Unless you’re not doing real, substantial work that actually deserves pay…”

    For the whole post: http://journalistdro.wordpress.com/

  6. Danielle
    June 10th, 2010 at 6:11 pm

    haha please ignore the ‘ in reasons…whoops

  7. pfallon
    June 15th, 2010 at 7:20 pm

    It gets better!!

    The supervisor regarding this called my professor before calling me! Then called the DEAN of the J-School!!!

    My phone reply to her voicemail left for me was not returned.

  8. Dustin Franz
    June 19th, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    Hey Patrick, I hope all is well up in Vermont. While I will never take another unpaid internship again, I did one last summer as a photographer at the Aspen Daily News. I got a call last January saying there was a position open and now I am the Chief Photographer at the Aspen Daily News. So, while I will not recommend an unpaid internship (especially in this economy) some good can come from them. Hey, it got me a job.

  9. Kevin Sherman
    June 21st, 2010 at 9:13 am

    I did a full time internship and then a part time fall internship with The Daily Herald in Elgin, IL.

    For me, the situation was unique in that I was coming from a school that did not offer a journalism program and their photography classes were a joke. I had a so-so portfolio, so I was looking for something to get me the experience and training I needed.

    In the Chicagoland area, the number of paid internships could probably be counted on one hand. I already had two other jobs that paid well, so I wasn’t needing a paid internship to pay my bills, and even if they did pay, minimum wage would have killed me.

    Fortunately, I was able to work out of an office that was close and covered assignments right in my area too. This was the DH’s first year doing unpaid internships, as such they were really flexible around my work schedules (and my employers were very flexible around my internship).

    Oh, and aside from a pool 300f2.8L IS, I used all my own equipment (which honestly meant that I had better equipment than most of their full-time ‘togs). They DID reimburse for mileage, which did net me a few hundred dollars a month thankfully.

    So, it was invaluable for me, in my situation. The staff there was great, loved working with them.

    But it wasn’t all great.

    I found it incredibly difficult to get feedback on my stuff. I tried to sit down regularly with the photo editor, but that often didn’t work out. Tried to nail down a few of the other photographers and it was just as hard to meet up with them. No one (except the photo editor) worked out of the office, so it was difficult to sit them down. That’s not to say that I didn’t nail them down, I did at few times with the editor and twice with two of the other guys. My feeling was that with it being unpaid and all, I shouldn’t have to beg and beg to get feedback.

    They never sent me out with another photographer, which was a bummer. Just sorta got thrown out and given assignments. Even on my first day when I really was pretty lost. Didn’t know the lingo, procedures, how to caption any of that stuff. Fortunately, I’m a quick study, but some sort of education would have been nice. Never got to do any longer-term stories and didn’t get to do any video work.

    Within about two months, I felt more like I was working for free and less that it was an educational experience. But again, I was happy for the work. I didn’t realize how much I loved even just covering boring festivals (in this area, there are several every weekend of the summer, all pretty similar) until I stopped. I then came back part-time in the fall mostly because I wanted to shoot more sports action. And then I even more felt like I was working for free.

    Now on the other end of it, I firmly believe that the experience was worth it for me in my situation.

    If I had to rely to getting paid to pay my bills, it would have been a different story (though I did still have a financially rough summer…).

    Do I feel a little ripped off? Without a doubt.

    Now I’m doing a little freelance work in the area, getting paid, because I met the newspaper’s photo editor on a few assignments.

    So I guess by way of comment to your post, I would say that to universally discount unpaid internships is not entirely the right move. Newspapers and most news organizations are struggling to survive everyday, but there is still news to be covered. It’s great getting paid, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

    That being said… The one you posted above I would not take in a million years unless (like you said) it was my all-time favorite hockey team (which would require me to like hockey :-P ).

    What I do think an-employer-of-the-intern should pay for would be the cost of the class at the school, to get credit. Fortunately, my school’s tuition is half off for the summer term. And mileage, that crap adds up FAST.

    *whew*

    Kevin Sherman

  10. pfallon
    June 21st, 2010 at 11:06 am

    Thanks again everyone for the comments and insight about your own experiences you have shared. I am noticing a bit of a trend including how critical, good feedback made those unpaid internships worthwhile for you, the ability to have a flexible schedule to work elsewhere as a day job allowed you to pay your expenses, as well as how not having a big J-School available was also an issue and these internships gave you that chance to learn. These are great points, I hope more people continue to share.

    On another note, I saw via google analytics that someone searching for “can you reimburse a non paid intern for mileage” came upon here. I believe the answer to that question is yes, as some commenters mentioned they were reimbursed for mileage and expenses during their internships.

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